Judge Tosses Out Defamation Lawsuit Against Media Ratings Site NewsGuard

deadline.com:

UPDATED, with comment from Consortium News: A federal judge tossed out a defamation lawsuit brought by Consortium News against NewsGuard, a media rating site that gave the media outlet low scores for trustworthiness.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla also dismissed claims brought against the U.S. government, which was named in the lawsuit as NewsGuard once had a contract with the U.S.

Air Force’s USAF Research Lab. Read the NewsGuard decision. Launched in 2018 by Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard employs a team of journalists to review news sites and give them a score of 0-100, information that is used by consumers and clients including AI companies, search engines, news aggregators, brands and researchers.

Consortium News received a rating of 47.5 out of 100, with a NewsGuard “Nutrition Label” stating that it “frequently published false and misleading claims about the war in Ukraine and other important subjects.” NewsGuard said that it had “determined that the site repeatedly publishes false content and does not gather and present information responsibly.” Consortium News also objected to NewsGuard’s characterization of its reporting as from an “anti-U.S.